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Taking action against privatisation

Jan 23, 2018

CPSU members have been standing up against privatisation, getting involved and building support for our Proud to be Public campaign.

Members across the country have recently come together for Campaign Forums to workshop ideas to build our campaign against recent moves to increase the use of Labour Hire workers in DHS and outsource call centre work to multinational company Serco.

They were joined by supporters from the community who are eager to stop the privatisation. Our meetings have been well attended and it is clear members are well informed on the issues and thinking creatively about how they can get involved and make a difference.

As well as building support among CPSU members and asking non-members to get involved and join the union, there have been lots of great ideas to:

Build public support for our campaign against privatisation

Involve and gain support from other organisations and community groups

Lobby politicians

Victorian members are coming together at our Melbourne office on 10 February for their Campaign Forum.

Our organising staff are also conducting activities around the country to get the input of DHS members in their workplaces.

Lobbying love

Our delegates in the ATO, meanwhile, have been meeting with MPs to build political support for our campaign against privatisation in the Tax Office.

The experience has been overwhelmingly positive, with MPs expressing support for keeping ATO work in public hands.

ATO delegates meeting with Victorian Federal MP, Andrew Giles.

Don’t privatise our borders

CPSU members in the Department of Home Affairs are also taking action against the privatisation of our visa system and the Immigration call centre.

This month it was announced that the Turnbull government want to give multinational company Datacom the contract for the Immigration call centre.

This is bad news for the 250 APS staff who work in the call centre, and the people who rely on this service to help them navigate Australia’s complex immigration system.

Now, the Department has revealed that it is intending to privatise the vast majority of visa processes. This puts up to 2000 jobs at risk and the security, privacy and quality of services provided to the Australian community.

At Christmas, Peter Dutton received over 1000 Christmas cards from our campaign supporters, telling him not to be a Grinch and stop privatisation.